Women weigh legal options in Hopkins case

Along with about 60 other women, Sophia Foreman went downtown Saturday to an Inner Harbor hotel to learn more about her legal options following the disclosure that her Johns Hopkins gynecologist had been accused of secretly photographing and videotaping his patients.

"We trusted him," said Foreman, 26, at the conclusion of a nearly two-hour "town hall" meeting organized by the Cochran law firm, one of several expected to file lawsuits against the estate of Dr. Nikita Levy and Hopkins over Levy's alleged invasions of his patients' privacy.

Levy was found dead Monday, apparently by suicide.

Two lawsuits have already been filed against Levy and his former employer. David Haynes, one of five Cochran lawyers at the meeting, said the firm had signed up "several dozen" former patients as clients even before the afternoon session. More filled out forms and signed retainer agreements before leaving the hotel.

Haynes said the law firm was looking into a claim made by one former patient that she had complained several years ago about "inappropriate conduct" by Levy. Hopkins has said it removed Levy from seeing patients Feb. 4, soon after being alerted by an employee; spokeswoman Kim Hoppe said she could not comment on pending litigation when asked about the older allegation.

The firm's lawyers also said that police had begun contacting former patients and that cameras had been set up in an exam room Levy used.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that police had seized "multiple types of cameras" from Levy's "work location" but would not comment on any contacts investigators may have had with witnesses or potential victims.

"He had a lot of us fooled," Foreman said as she left the meeting.

Foreman said Levy delivered her first child five years ago, and she was expecting him to deliver her second, due at the end of March. His abrupt removal has left her in the lurch, she said, as she's unwilling to go back to the East Baltimore clinic. She said she has tried without success to arrange for her baby's delivery at a couple of other hospitals. Now, she said, she's made an appointment to see another Hopkins physician, at a different facility.

Unleashing your sociological imagination is a must! In the days of social media, consumers are bombarded by media images and sound bites that become the "reality" of those who relish in having others think for them. The recent announcement by Johns Hopkins Medical System that a former...